I have a 2D file with 2D tree cells in the correct geographic locations and need to now place 3D tree cells onto existing 3d meshes in the same XY locations as the 2D plan. I have tried several options now without success.
I was hoping to use the stencil tool to project a point onto the surface and then export the XYZ point coordinates and use them to place the 3D trees, but it seems that it can't project a point, I presume it can't make a mesh with 1 point.
Is there a tool that can move an element vertically to a surface or something similar. Can anyone suggest something that I can try
I am using MicroStation v16.311, we also have OpenRoads latest version and OpenBuildings update 9 if there is anything in them that may help.
Regards,
John
Check the Populate Tool (Visualization > Utilities > Populate)
Please check this Wiki
Thanks for your help Leonard but it looks like the linked wiki has gone walkabout.
You could try "Move to contact" tool.
First use replace cells tool to replace 2D cells with 3D and then select them and run the tool.
Hi John,
Try the following:
In the 2D design file Select all of the 2d trees
Key-in EXPORT ELEMENT then set Prefix: XY= and set Separator: Comma then click the Single button to export the coordinates of the selected elements to a text file (for example D:\textfile.txt).
Edit the resulting text file and replace all occurrences of xy=, with xy=This will remove the unnecessary commas next to the = symbols
Save the edited text file.
In the 3D design file rotate view to TOP and display only the existing 3D meshes you wish to place trees upon. This simplify and speed up the process by not displaying unnecessary elements.
Use the Populate Single tool (Key-in CIVVIS POPULATE SINGLE) and setup the Content: and Item: as desired for your 3D tree(s).
Key-in @D:\textfile.txt to use the text file as a script to data point at each coordinate in the text file.
The result will be a tree placed on the surface of the underlying existing 3D meshes at each coordinate.
Regards,Ron
Thanks Oto,
Will try that.
Thanks Ron,
Will also try that.
an alternative to move to contact is to use accudraw after replacing the cells. lock accudraw to the z axis and use the nearest snap.
Thanks David,
That will work but too many trees to do manually, 700 is just the 1st stage.
I'm pretty sure that it would be easy to write a VBA macro which could insert cells on the mesh with known X&Y coordinates and the intersecting Z coordinate would be calculated automatically. I made a similar macro a couple of months ago for another member to find the closest point on a B-spline surface from a specified point. What you are needing is similar, but instead needing to calculate an intersection point to a mesh along the Z vector (either up or down) from source X&Y coordinates.
John Davidson said:700 is just the 1st stage.
Good luck with that! I hope CONNECT is capable of handling that number if the trees are cells with any decent level of detail. In my experience, MicroStation is not the software you want for that kind of thing; V8i certainly can't handle that amount of geometry whatsoever but I don't know if CONNECT fares any better. I'm not even sure using Shared Cells and Fast Cells enabled will help much, compared to what I used to do many years ago in 3D Studio Max with Evermotion Tree's made into V-Ray Proxies.
The other thing worth considering is that even if you can place all these tree's and aren't finding slowdown due to large amounts of geometry, the trees are going to (initially) look terrible because they will all be identical in scale and rotation. With the aforementioned V-Ray Proxies, I used to have a Maxscript where I could select the trees and set maximum and minimum range percentage values for scale and rotation (from their original size and rotation) so that they had a more natural variation in appearance. Again this is something that probably could be written in VBA although calculated randomness is far from truly random
Barry,
Barry Lothian said:the trees are going to (initially) look terrible because they will all be identical in scale and rotation
The Populate tool has settings to randomize scale and rotation, so you can avoid that problem,
It also automatically places the cells as Shared Cells which definitely reduces the impacts on system resources when working with large populations.
Ah well that's a good option to have built-in already. It's not a tool I've used as I don't use MicroStation for 3D work where mass amounts of geometry needs populated, I've find MicroStation is good for modelling buildings etc.. but when it comes to trying to create Arch Viz images and adding all sorts of content to enhance realism (different grass types, Trees, individual stones/leaves, people, vehicles etc..) it simply can't handle the data and navigating grinds to a halt. Performance in CONNECT might be a bit better, but in my previous tests it still struggled. Couple that with poor quality render engines in V8i/CONNECT(compared to V-Ray/Octane/Corona/Cycles etc..), I limit my 3D work in MS these days purely technical.
With any luck your suggestion will give John what he's looking for.
Barry,Here's a link to a very realistic animation I created in V8i about 9 years ago that contains over 23000 3D trees. While navigation slowed down with all geometry visible it was easy to turn off levels that contain the trees and navigate more fluidly.